The Making of SKETCH

It all started with an idea, an idea that I got from an old TV show. It was nearing the end of my junior year and I had been brainstorming.

Staying up every night thinking of a great story I could bring to life through video. I knew that without a great story I wasn’t going to be able to catch others attention. For a little less than a month I kept hitting brick walls and dead ends and I was starting to get frustrated, that was until this old TV show popped into my head. It was about a man who wanted to be something but he was going nowhere. That was the concept I took and from that old show and I ran with it.

For a summer I stayed indoors writing the script trying, to find a good quality camera to shoot with, and writing the script some more. If it wasn’t for my video production teacher Mr. Nuttall I would have given up on that script since it literally took me the whole summer to come up with the finished product. He kept sending me e-mails of encouragement, saying that I could do this and that it will all be worth it when I win something big. I didn’t truly believe that my film was going to be good enough to win any awards at that time but eventually I did finish the script. Once the script was finished I knew that the person playing David was going to have to be able to act better than the average friend who wants to help out. So after thinking about it for a second I immediately knew that the high school acting teacher Mr. Duran would be perfect. I gave him the script; he loved it and was on board right away. For the rest of the cast I thought about people that I knew that were similar to the characters in the cast. I thought even if I know someone who just looks like they can play a part I’ll run it by them. By September I had a cast that was willing and able. Luckily, the majority of my cast was actors that I knew or really outgoing people who weren’t afraid to play, for instance, a bully that pushes a cripple.

One of the hardest obstacles for all film makers is finding a great location. It was truly a blessing to find out that my video teacher had friends that would be able to let me film in their shop, their mansion, and even Mr. Nuttall’s dad let me film in his house for long periods of time. The hard part was figuring out a schedule that would work for literally everyone. I remember making so many phone calls checking and then double checking if people could make certain days, finishing the schedule and then changing it all over again because one person last minute wouldn’t be able to make a day. After changing the schedule at least three times I was done with pre-production and ready to move onto production.

Production

October 1st was the first day of shooting and I remember this by heart because I was so nervous and worried, thinking that I was going to mess up. I dreaded that day, but I was so ready for it at the same time. It makes me laugh when I think about it because during that shoot I did horrible. I didn’t even use what we shot that night in the film because the lighting was poor, the shots were awkward and I couldn’t get into a comfortable groove that night. After that night I learned that when I walk on set I am the leader and from that point onward I came over prepared to every shoot. I would call each person who was going to be acting the night before we were going to film and make sure they have their costumes ready, that they know exactly what time we were starting and where we were going to shoot. I would look over the storyboards, read parts of the script, go through it all in my head multiple times and even pray before every shoot. It felt like preparing to rob a bank, it’s easy to break in and demand the money, but everything needs to be perfect in order to make a clean getaway.

Directing others was a bit difficult at first since I had never really directed a film where the main character had so much emotion. It was also kind of weird telling my sister’s acting teacher what to do. So the end result was me acting out most roles before the talent did. This is probably why some of the acting wasn’t exactly perfect but it all worked out in the end. Of course there were times when someone would bring the wrong change of clothes or some problem would pop up, but I kept from freaking out, explored my options and found a way to get past those problems. There is always an answer to a problem you just have to take the time to find it or ask someone else who might know.

Post-production

In order to keep from being overwhelmed during post production I would work on scenes of my film instead of tackling the whole movie all at once. I actually would work on these scenes while we were still in the production phase. We would shoot on weekends since the main character was a teacher in real life and I would edit each scene as much as I could during the week days until we would need to film the next scene the following weekend. But once I had filmed the last of the footage we needed I found that the movie was 30 minutes long. This worried me because I knew that in order to send my film into the film festival I had in mind, it was going to have to be cut down to less than 20 minutes. I spent hours upon hours editing nonstop, sometimes all night (since the rendering process for each scene would take at the very least 5 hours). It took literally my entire Christmas break in order to get the rough cut and then cut the movie down to 23 minutes.

23 minutes was the best I could do without taking away the full potential of the story. During that time I would work on the application color, trying to find the perfect feel for the movie. My video teacher showed me a website called Independent Student Media that would allow me to use their music for free as long as I gave them credit, and I would find the perfect cuts for each shot to make it look as if the character David really had no legs. Looking back this was the most stressful time in my entire life. The reason why this time was so hectic was because I had never worked on one specific thing for so long in my life, and I was so ready to just see all the problems the movie had at the time just fade away.

Finishing “Sketch”, watching the exporting bar reach 100% and playing the final product in early January was unlike anything I have come across. Through that time I had gained a strong bond with my teacher Mr. Nuttall. Later on he told me that he was proud of me, which by the way he had never said this to me before and that was a very up lifting moment for me. This was one moment that I will never forget. I could probably quote the film I made word for word I have seen it so many times, I could tell you that I have never worked on anything so hard in my life, and that for at least three months I was stressed out of my mind. But one thing is for sure, I would do it all over again just to see the final product.